It all began when a church collecting offerings rejected a cheque and asked, instead, for cash.
Now a legal battle, begun eight years ago, will cast a pall over the Supreme Annual Conference of the Ethiopian Church of South Africa this weekend.
Mbulelo Gqaji, a church parish steward from Khayelitsha township in Cape Town, wants an interdict to halt the conference — or at least delay the handover of monies.
”People are being exploited,” Gqaji told the Mail & Guardian. ”Money that they are collecting, they cannot account for.”
A previous attempt to interdict the conference, in 1999, failed. Criminal fraud and theft charges did not result in prosecution.
Bishop Gqwetha Ndimande, overall head of the Ethiopian Church, said he did not know of any interdict. And he dismissed the legal action: ”We have had judgements … and they are all in favour of the church.”
At each annual conference money collected from around half-a-million church members across the country is handed over, and fundraising events are held.
Gqaji insists the money should be collected by congregation leaders and deposited in church bank accounts, rather than waiting until the annual meeting. He wants the church to account for monies collected.
He is following in his father’s footsteps — it was his father who took legal action to force the church to accept a cheque.
In 1998 the church undertook to hire auditors. In 2002 Gqaji sued to have the church found in contempt for failing to audit. The case went against him; the court found that auditors had, in fact, been hired. But later that year the auditors resigned, having apparently not received the necessary documents.
In court papers Ndimande denied any wrongdoing. ”I have never used a cent for my personal use.
”The opposite is, in fact, true. I have used personal money from my garage and taxi business to help build churches.”
He also said that ”never in the history of the church” had an audited statement been drawn up, never mind auditors appointed.